


You & Me & A Song

by FancifulUniKitty



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Art, Cancer, F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Mentions of Cancer, Mostly Fluff, Science, Secret Crush, Sorry Not Sorry, Unrequited Love, awkward first time smut, awkward talks with parents, because first times are awkward, first time awkwardness, most vagina-posessing individuals do not orgasm the first time, nerds falling in love, senior prom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:47:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29215935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulUniKitty/pseuds/FancifulUniKitty
Summary: Math and Chemistry TA Ben meets 2nd year senior Rey, a quiet, lonely artist who has to retake chemistry and trig in order to receive her high school diploma. When he realizes how much she is struggling, he offers to tutor her. Love abounds. Determined to find out how she feels, he invites her to Prom.Basically tooth rotting, delicious fluff and a night neither of them will ever forget.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26





	You & Me & A Song

FALL TRIMESTER 1984

It starts in third period chemistry. Ben, having completed most high school credits and having space to fill, had been the TS for Dr. Holdo’s underclassmen courses. Typically that means freshman and some sophomores who opted for biology as a freshman, but this semester is different. There’s a new kid in this class, one he’s never seen despite Chandrilla High being an infamously small school. 

She's quiet, he notices. When she takes notes she doesn't raise her hand to ask questions, but she does doodle in the margins. Sometimes black and white, a lot of times color. He assumes she’s a pretty good student; at least she’s taking notes unlike the majority of their knuckleheaded classmates. Copious amounts of notes.

The first trimester goes by in a whirlwind. He spends much of the time during third period watching the quiet, beautiful girl. He notices that she’s not just quiet during class, but when she comes in, usually before the others, she doesn’t socialize. She goes straight to her desk, and as soon as the bell rings she is one of the first out the door.

They are a month in when he notices that she’s brought a sketchbook with her, and doodles there, too. Dr. Holdo chastises her quite loudly in front of everyone one morning in late September, her charcoals having made a mess of her scantron.

The way the blush that spreads from her forehead to her chest makes her freckles stand out shouldn’t be so cute, but it is. 

It’s not cute when she runs out of the classroom with tears streaming down her face.

“Rey!” Holdo calls after her half-heartedly.

_Rey_. How had he not known her name was Rey? 

He doesn’t ask for permission before following her down the hall. He’s not able to catch up before she ducks into the girls’ bathroom, so he’s left with nothing to do but wait or go back to class. For an inexplicable reason, even to himself, he decides to pace outside the girls’ restroom. He could do what a much cooler senior would do, and lean against the opposing wall with a leg propped up. In those John Hughes movies there is always a kid in a black leather jacket leaning against a wall somewhere. But Ben Solo just paces.

When she finally emerges, eyes puffy and bloodshot, Ben stops in his tracks. In class, with her head hunched over her notes and her drawings he’s never been able to see her this closely. He knew she was beautiful, but surely there is something else to describe the girl standing before him?

“What are you doing?” She snaps, her voice still carrying a tremor. 

“I, um, well I,” Ben fumbles for the right thing to say. He’s never just approached a girl like this, what was he thinking? “I was, I mean I am. I’m worried. About you, that is.”

She just stares at him, mouth hanging open, brows furrowed, clearly confused.

“Why?”

“W-why?” It is Ben’s turn for confusion. “You were… crying?”

“And?”

“Dr. Holdo…” Ben looks away, trying to puzzle together an answer for her. Has he made her uncomfortable? He’d meant the opposite, but maybe this really is weird. “She made you cry, it wasn’t right.”  
  
“Well,” Rey scoffs, looking down at her tattered Convrse. Ben looks down, too, and notices that they are also covered in her little doodles. “She’s not wrong. I’m probably not even going to graduate because of this class. I don’t know why I even try.”

Without looking back up at him she heads off towards the main hallway, where he knows the exit is. He contemplates his choices. She’s struggling (and now that he thinks about it, knowing her name now, her tests and assignments have been… less than desirable.), and he has several study hall periods, and has tutored many underclassmen. He’s mulling all of this over when a different thing she’d said clicks. Graduate?

“Rey, wait!” He chases after her, her own feet picking up speed as she makes her way to the exit. She doesn’t even flinch or try to make herself scarce when she passes the front office. Ben makes a point to wave in at the secretary, Rose Tico’s older sister Paige) as he whooshes by. “Wait, wait, please!”

He lunges forward, thankfully not far at all with his six foot three frame, and grabs hold of her upper arm. Her body immediately stiffens and before he knows it she’ whirling around and landing a mean left hook directly across his jaw. He’s stunned enough that he lets go of her arm in favor of holding his jaw in an attempt to assuage the pain.

Rey, for her part, seems just as shocked as he currently feels, her hands covering her gaping mouth. She doesn’t offer an apology, though. They just stand, staring at each other, new tears are forming in her eyes, and Ben can not tell if they are from fear or anger. Eventually, she glances down at her arm where his hand had just been.

Ben’s eyes follow hers. No bruise, thank goodness. Had he grabbed her too roughly? He does that sometimes. A boy with his hand size and lankiness, it's hard not to grab things or touch things, or even simply move, without too much force. He’s working on it.

“I’m sorry.” He says. “I didn’t mean to scare you I just… you said graduate?”

Rey lifts her brows, as if to say ‘yes, and?’

“Chem 1 is usually freshman and sophomores.” Ben says simply, and regrets it immediately when her face falls. “But sometimes I see juniors, too?”

Rey looks at her feet, again. Ben thinks it's a shame how much of her time is spent looking down. Down at her shoes, down at her notes. Eyes like this deserve to be up and taking in the world. The world deserves those eyes.

Then he notices gravity pulling a tear from her eyes, landing on the toe of her converse and smudging one of her doodles.

“So you _are_ a senior?”

“I’m just trying to graduate.” She whispers. “I’ll be eighteen next month, and I can only stay at my foster home if I’m on track to graduate.”

Everything begins to make sense. Once in a while they will get a student or two from other schools who are short credits, or failed courses. Chandrilla has a small enough student body to accommodate for additional students. No wonder he’s never seen her before and doesn’t usually see her around campus outside of class.

“This teacher is more of a hard ass than any of the other ones I’ve had and it all just sounds like gibberish to me.”

Ben has never heard her speaking so much, and the more he does the more he wants to keep hearing it.

“You need a tutor.”

“That would be nice,” Rey laughs lightly. “If my piece of shit foster dad would pay for one.”

Oh.

“I could, I mean I wanted to offer,” He’s babbling again, and has to stop to take a breath. In. Out. “I meant, I could tutor you.”

“You would do that?”

“Yeah, I would.”

She looks up at him again and smiles. And Ben knows - he’s a goner. He’s never been in love before, never even kissed a girl, but he’s never really wanted to, either. Until now.

“Thank you, Ben.”

…

They begin meeting twice a week during Ben’s second period study hall, when Rey has no classes, and usually walk to chemistry together. Well, not _together_ together. But near each other, and moving in the same direction. She’s still fairly quiet most days. Once she mentions how lovely fall is here, and another time how lucky he is to be so smart in science. He tells her he wishes he could draw. She smiles at that, but says nothing in return. 

The trimester carries on, and Rey still doesn’t participate in class, but her grade has improved. She doesn’t talk much during their tutoring sessions, either. She gets distracted easily, continues to doodle, and after some time he begins to notice under her nails. She’s a nail biter, he noticed that, too. Its incredible to Ben, really, all the things he’s noticing so close, even if she isn’t opening up about more than her homework.

The dark circles under her eyes.

The way her hair sometimes illuminates auburn in the library’s fluorescent light.

Her collarbones protruding slightly more each week.

The way she has dimples when she smiles big enough after finally grasping a concept.

Her arriving with puffy, swollen eyelids more often than not.

The butterflies that have occupied his stomach growing in mass and volume by the minute.

He also notices when she misses a session. Then two. Then three. Then he notices that she’s also not coming to class anymore. It’s the week after Halloween and finals for the fall Trimester are in just two weeks. She’s carrying a C- now, so she’s passing, but Ben knows she can pull it up to a B- if she keeps working.

He could get in so much trouble, he knows, but he bribes Paige one day during a failed second period to pull Rey’s file and get her address. He still has forty minutes left of second and doesn’t care if he misses first, he just leaves.

When he pulls up to the address Paige had given him, he feels sick to his stomach. Everything he has ever seen in movies or on TV about how deplorable foster homes are is littered across the scene before him. The house looks ready to be condemned, and he finds himself thinking about Rey’s tattered old Converse, the ones she wears every single day, and hopes they keep her feet protected in this death trap. 

Arming himself with false bravado he approaches the door and knocks. There’s a beat up car in the driveway, so he assumes someone must be here. Still, he has to knock on the door a second time before he hears a gruff “Hold your horses, goddamnit!” From somewhere on the other side of the door. Ben finds himself bouncing from foot to foot, not sure what he’s going to say to whoever owns that booming voice.

The door swings open to reveal a man taller than him, and almost just as big around. Huge arms, beady eyes and a snarl as bad as Ben’s next door neighbor’s Doberman, Darth.

“What do you want?” The man all but shouts, annoyance at Ben’s disturbance laced in his voice.

“Um, is, uh, Rey home, sir?”

“She’s not my problem anymore.” The man says before moving to shut the door. He may be bigger, but Ben is fast, and despite appearances, he’s actually quite strong. He catches the door and pushes against it a bit to fit his head through.

“Hey!” This man, this absolute pig of a man, has the audacity to glare at him. “Where is she? She hasn’t been at school, and she hasn’t come to tutoring, and if you did something to her I have the number for her case worker.”

The man charges towards the door and stops mere inches away from Ben.

“You listen here you little shit,” He says in a low voice Ben imagines is meant to be menacing. “She’s eighteen now. I got the last check for her already. Not. My. Problem. She’s Maz’s problem now.”

Maz?

Chandrilla is full of individuals with pretty strange names, but he’s only ever met one person with that name. Without another word he’s off.

Maz’s Home for the Wayward Souls, because Maz is _spiritual,_ or whatever, is a halfway house just outside of Chandrilla, between the much biggest city of Coruscant and serves as a halfway or transitional housing for a variety of interesting characters. Some are just getting out of the prison system, some are coming from rehab, some have spent time in a mental institution, and apparently some have aged out of foster care, because there she is when he arrives.

Washing dishes in the kitchen, smiling like he hasn’t seen in far too long already. The smile fades when she sees him, but it doesn’t go away.

“Ben.” 

“I was, um, worried about you.”

This does make her smile leave immediately. “Why?”

“You stopped coming to school. And, and you were doing so well with the tutoring, I was worried something happened at… at home…”

Rey does the thing. She looks down. Only, her old tattered converse have been replaced with clean, untattered brand new ones. Thank Gods for Maz.

“Plutt kicked me out. I was passing chemistry, but I failed trig…” her voice is so small, and it takes everything in him not to hug her. Because that would be weird. Except for that time he grabbed her arm they’d never even made contact before. A hug is far too intimate. “He said if I wasn’t graduating on time this time then there was no point… And he was right. So I came here, I had nowhere else to go.”

“Rey…” Ben doesn’t know what to say. She’s so reserved, doesn’t offer up a ton of information without some prying, but it never occurred to him that she might have another class she was struggling with. “You know I tutor math, too right?”  
  
Rey’s eyes shoot up immediately, and though her lips are catching on just yet, he can tell her eyes are smiling.

“Of course you do.”

“So, I could do that. I could help you, Rey.”

“I’d like that, Ben.”

She barely squeaks by with a D in trig this trimester, but it’s technically still passing.

She gets a B in chemistry and Ben swears his soul leaves his body when she flings her arms around his neck. It’s only a second, she springs back almost the second she realizes what she’s done… but Ben carries that one second with her arms around him in his heart all through Thanksgiving break.

  
  
  


...

WINTER TRIMESTER 1984/1985

Winter trimester, Rey begins to open up to him, and if Ben wasn’t sure before, he really is a goner now.

The dark circles in her eyes slowly begin to match the rest of her face. Her collarbones are still visible, but she no longer looks sickly. She doesn’t come to school with puffy eyes anymore. She seems happier. And this makes Ben happier. His parents comment as much several times over Winter Tri. 

It’s a Friday afternoon when she lets slip that she’s been stealing supplies from the art room at CHS this whole time, but Maz has bought her so many of her own since she moved to the Home. She tells him how she’s fixing up Maz’s old dilapidated shed and in exchange Maz is going to let her turn it into her art studio. 

“She says I’m welcome to stay in the home until I turn twenty-one.” Rey says one day, after they’ve finished her homework and reviewing the notes she’d taken in both classes that day. Now that she has supplies and a place to draw, she doesn’t doodle on her notes as much. Ben finds that he misses the doodles. There’s paint stains all over her hands now, not just under her nails. “She said as long as I stay in school, even if it's just the community college, I can stay until I’m twenty-one. That’s three whole years.”  
  
“High school is four years,” Ben says, nodding along. “That flew by, didn’t it? Three years will go by in no time.”

It seems like the wrong thing to say, as Rey deflates at his words.

“I don’t want it to go by. No one’s ever kept me around that long.”

It is the longest weekend of Ben’s life. Longer teven than the five days they got for Thanksgiving.

The next week leading up to Winter Break, Rey still shows up, and is becoming even more engaged in the coursework, but she doesn’t bring up Maz, or the home, or her art again. The paint is gone from her hands and fingernails.

He decides to break the ice by pointing it out. She blushes furiously, as if she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t have been.

“I’m just drawing more than painting these days.” She explains, eyes glued to her notebook. “It’s less messy. Nobody thinks you’re dirty. Or homeless.”

Ben’s jaw drops at this. 

“Who said that?”

“No one.” She sounds defensive, which Ben understands. Still, he hates that someone said that to her. “Just, you know, people talk. And I really only talk to you, so I listen to everyone else.”

“Oh.” He knows she didn’t mean it the way he wants her to. She talks to him because he helps her, and she needs to be in school to keep her place at home. But, it's just the crumb he needs to feel satiated for the first time in… well, probably ever. “Well, I like seeing all the paint on your hands. It’s, um, bright. And, colorful.”

He does a happy dance in his head the next day when he notices new patches of paint on the back of her hand and speckles up her forearm the next day.

That afternoon, he drives into Coruscant in search of Pearl, the big art store. He still has money saved up from his summer job and the few private tutoring clients he’s taken on during the school year and he wants to get something Rey will appreciate.

The salesperson asks him what medium she uses, and he freezes. She looks like more of a small to him. 

“I need paint.” He says, trying to clarify. “Good paint.”

“Okay…” The young girl, Kaydel according to her nametag, draws the word out and Ben is sure he both looks and sounds utterly ridiculous. “Gouache? Oil? Watercolor? Acrylics? We have a large variety of paints to choose from?”  
  
Ben feels so out of his element. H’s guessing not oil, that likely wouldn’t cling to her skin in little dry patches like the paint she normally uses are. But aren’t all the big artists known for oil paintings? Didn’t Van Gogh or whoever use oil? Maybe he should get that. Watercolors sound pretty, though. Soft, delicate. Her hands are always full of such bold colors, red and yellows. Maybe she’d like to try something new? 

“Maybe a little of everything.”

And Kaydel does offer him a variety of the entire paint section in the store. Even a notebook filled with special paper just for the watercolors. He spends more than he is comfortable telling his parents about, but he’s sure it’s perfect. Kaydel even puts the items in boxes and wraps them for him. Which is well enough; he’s no good at such delicate tasks.

The Friday before school lets out, he arrives at the library extra early. His parents had wanted him to skip today, it’s not like they’d be doing much anyway, and they want to head to the cabin a day early, but he can’t wait until after the holidays to see Rey’s face.

She arrives right on time for second period and a shy smile starts to spread across her face when she sees the small pile of gifts sitting on their usual table.

“What’s all this?”

“Well, I um, I missed your birthday,” Ben says slowly, trying to gauge her reaction as he speaks. “And Christmas is next week. And you’re kind of the only person I talk to, too.”

“Oh, Ben.” She looks like she’s going to cry, but she’s smiling. “I just have something small for you.”  
  
“You don’t have to get me anything Rey, really.”  
  
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a still, flat rectangle wrapped in brown craft paper. The craft paper is covered in the same little space doodles she used to draw on her notes for class. He wonders how long it took her to draw them all.

They sit down and stare at their respective gifts. Eventually Ben waves at her to go ahead, and he slowly, as carefully as he can peels back the brown paper from her gift. Inside is what looks like canvas, but it's so flat and he’s clearly looking at the back. He flips it over and he is blown away.

She’s made him a painting, even signed the bottom corner ‘Rey’ with a little star next to it. She’s made him a galaxy in deep blues and purples, and little white flecks of stars all over. Some stand out and have a transparent line connecting them like constellations. He knows enough about astronomy to know the constellations she’s painted are actually chemical compounds.

Dopamine.

Serotonin.

Oxytocin.

Endorphin.

The butterflies that have permanently taken up residence in his stomach start flocking wildly. He looks over at her, opening the second of three packages, with tears streaming down her face. She must feel him staring because she looks up and immediately springs herself across the table to wrap him in a hug. Unlike the last time, she doesn’t pull away seconds later. She holds on, shaking and sobbing loudly. As carefully as he can, Ben brings his hands up around her back, patting her awkwardly as he tries to process what was happening.

“You’re, like, the _best_ friend I’ve ever had, Ben.”

Oh. Friend. Ben feels defeated. He’d been hoping… She had to have just picked the compounds at random, he decides. He can live with just friends. Truthfully, she’s the best friend he’s ever had, too. One of the only friends he’s ever had. And he tells her so.

Eventually she lets him go and he excuses himself, says he has to get home to leave with his parents for winter break. Rey thanks him again, and tells him she can’t wait to try water colors for the first time.

“See you next year, Ben.” She says as she waves goodbye.

Though she’d called him just a friend, Ben leaves the library smiling brighter than he thinks he ever has.

  
  


SPRING TRIMESTER 1985

Eventually the snow melts and they are well into the beginnings of Spring trimester. Ben starts to get acceptance letter after acceptance letter, but all he can think is that its not fair that he’s just met Rey and now he’ll be far away. Even just being friends with her was a thousand times less lonely than being friends with no one. And by this point he’s about eighty percent sure he’s absolutely in love with her. How can he convince her that even if he's not the most handsome guy (she’s so, so beautiful, she could have anyone she wanted), or athletic or a bad boy, or whatever it is that teenage girls seem to all want, and even though he’s incredibly awkward, that he could be good for her?

He decides to ask his Mom about it one night a few days before the end of winter tri, and this proves to be a mistake. He thought his Dad would be the one to be a bad advice giver, being a reckless bad boy himself, but Leia? All she says is:  
  
“Just tell her how you feel, Ben. Any girl would be lucky to have you.” And then she wants to know everything about ‘this girl who has you so smitten.’

Fucking useless. And embarrassing.

So he goes to his Uncle Chewie. Luke had been his other thought, but he also can’t remember the last time he’d seen Luke even _date_ , so that would probably be about as useless as his mom telling him to just talk about his feelings.

Chewie’s advice is a bit more practical.

“Ask her to the prom.”  
  
It hadn’t even occurred to Ben, he’d just assumed he wasn’t going to go. He had acquaintances, other kids he’d known his whole life, but he hadn’t any close friends or any prospects for a date. Renting a tux and paying fifty dollars to stand on the wall and drink punch seemed like a waste. But renting a tux and standing against a wall that Rey was also standing against, talking to him? That could be something…

  
  


“She’ll probably be excited and all. Girls love dressing up and being asked to go to prom. You can even slow dance.” Chewie raises his arms as if he’s holding onto someone and sways a bit. “If she wants to be more than friends, she’ll put her head on your shoulder. If she wants to just be friends, she’ll keep her hands out like this.” Chewie places a good foot of distance between himself and his imaginary partner. 

Now that? Ben could work with that. Put the ball in her court, so to speak.

“Maybe you can even request a special song, let her know how ya feel without having to say it, yeah?”

So Ben spends the next three days glued to his stereo with a notebook and pencil, waiting for something perfect to come on so he can write it down. It’s at the very end of the night three that he hears it, the perfect song. It’s a popular one right now, he knows, and it's just rock enough to not be lame, but slow enough to still be (he hopes) romantic.

Now he just has to ask her.

Only, the next week she doesnt come to tutoring on Tuesday. She’s been doing well enough in both her classes that tutoring time is really just to make sure she’s on track, and so they can talk and laugh. God, he loves her laugh. Mostly she laughs at him, how nerdy he is, or how he’s so freakishly tall, but it's worth it to hear her sound so carefree and happy. Both things she wasn’t allowed to be until she moved in with Maz. 

It’s the week before reading week, and winter finals are the week after. He’s confident that she’ll pass this trimester, but she hasn’t missed one of their meetings in months unless they arranged it beforehand. He waits, and waits. Ten minutes go by, then fifteen. By the time half the period is over, Ben resolves to try again tomorrow. In his experience with Rey thus far, if she’s not there for second period it’s because she missed her first period trigonometry class, too. Which means she probably isn’t coming today. He gathers his books, puts them in his backpack and leaves the library. 

Chem lab is across campus, and it is for this reason alone that he has to walk past the senior parking lot. It is for this reason that he finally finds Rey, sitting in the passenger seat of another boy. A junior named Finn. He’s a nice guy; friendly, a nice smile. Popular. Proportionally sized ears and nose. And he’s a fellow foster kid. 

Of course she’s in a car with a guy like Finn. It’s fine. Everything is fine. Ben doesn’t want to look like a creep, just standing there watching them talk in Finn’s car, but in a nanosecond everything changes and he suddenly can’t look away or even think about running. 

Because Rey is crying, and laughing, and hugging Finn. When she’s pulling away from him, she kisses him on the cheek and while _she_ has that adorable shocked look on her face that she gets whenever she does something she hadn’t planned on doing, Finn looks… happy. And then Finn is leaning in and Rey isn’t leaning away. And then Finn is kissing her. And Rey is kissing Finn.

And Ben is going to be sick.

Now Ben runs. He can’t possibly stay here anymore. Instead of running to Chem, though, he runs as fast as he can to the south entrance of the senior parking lot to get to his own car so he can drive. And drive. And drive. He drives all the way to Coruscant before he realizes that he doesn’t even remember stopping at a light, or checking his blind spots. He’s just made a two hour drive in a complete black out.

He wanders around the city until he ends up in the outskirts at Naboo National Park. He wanders through the park, hikes up a specific tower of rocks and boulders until he reaches the top. He hasn’t been here in years, not since his Nana passed away when he was fourteen, but the view is just as spectacular as he remembers. 

Rey reminds him a lot of his Nana. She kind of looks like her, in a way. It should be disgusting, but it's also strangely comforting. His Nana was quiet, most of the time, but get her talking about politics and she came to life. It’s the same way with Rey and her art. He wishes he had a camera with him, to take a photo for Rey to make a painting of it.

When did she even start hanging out with Finn? She’s said multiple times that she doesn’t really talk to anyone but him. Not that he doesn’t want her to have friends, male friends even if that’s what she wants, but that kiss was decidedly not friendly.

Ben looks sound, kicking away any broken twigs or small rocks before removing his sweater and laying it on the flat surface and laying himself down a top it. He stares up at the overcast sky and just starts talking. Some people go to gravestones to talk with loved ones lost, but those are just bodies in the ground. This is where he feels close to Nana.

By the time he is done talking, Nana knows everything that he knows about Rey. How She hates teasing her hair and can’t wait until it goes out of fashion, how her brand new Converse are now littered in doodles and drawings that are in permanent ink instead of Crayola markers. Rey’s favorite color is green, because she grew up in the desert and still remembers moving to a place that had trees for the first time. How she’s never seen the ocean but it’s her dream to live on the beach and paint it every day.

Then he talks to Nana about everything that’s changed since she’s been gone. Dad’s moved back in and he and mom actually seem happy for the first time in years. Luke is still a weird hermit, but they see him more, and sometimes he even cracks lame jokes. Grandpa’s still sad, but he’s smiling more now. 

He tells Nana about the prom and how he wanted so badly to ask Rey, and to request a song he’d picked just for her, and how he’s been praying the last 48 hours that when the song came on she would choose to rest her head on his chest rather than keeping him a foot away. He tells Nana that that’s out the window now, because now she’s parking in cars kissing Finn Storm.

Nana doesn’t talk back. She can’t and he knows that, but somehow letting it all out to _someone_ somehow makes the weight of it lighter. He’s not sure when, but he knows it will be ok. Somehow, someway. At least now it’s not all trapped inside.

He leaves the park, still upset but ready. 

He’s not ready to find Rey sitting on his porch when he arrives home with her hands clasped tightly in her lap and legs bouncing wildly like she’s the one who has something to be nervous about. She watches from her perch as he parks his car and heads over to join her.

“What are you doing here?” Ben asks.

“Maz told me where you live, I know she’s good friends with your mom.”

That doesn’t answer his question.

“I, um, saw you earlier. When I was in Finn’s car.”

“Yeah.” It’s all he can think to say. Is she here to tell him her _boyfriend_ doesn’t want her spending so much time alone with another boy now?

“I just wanted to tell you,” he notices that her hands are trembling a bit now. “Finn and I, we’re just friends.”

Exhale. 

‘I wasn’t expecting him to kiss me, especially not right then I mean, I was so happy for him when he told me he’s being adopted, being a foster kid we have to look out for each other, but I just didn’t think-”

“Rey it’s fine.” And he means it. He really does. “You really don’t owe me any kind of explanation.”

“I… don’t?” Rey stops shaking and looks up. 

“Of course not. Why would you?”

“Oh.” Rey says, nibbling on her lower lip in thought. “I guess I just figured… well, nevermind, then.”

She wipes her hands on her jeans and jumps up, beginning walking.

“Rey!” Ben shouts after her. “Let me drive you home.”

She’s never been in his car before. All the hours they’ve spent together pales in comparison to the way it feels to look over and see her humming along to his car stereo.

Except for her singing, the ride is silent. He keeps hoping she’ll tell him what she was going to say on his porch. But she just sings. 

When he pulls up to The Home, she unbuckles right away, thanking him for the ride as he puts the car in park. She does a double-take in his direction, like she wants to say something else, but instead she just thanks him for the ride and slips out of the car. She’s halfway up the porch steps when Ben rips his own seatbelt from its lock and practically jumps from the car.

“Wanna go to prom with me?” He shouts from across the yard. Rey stops mid step and just sort of… stands there for a few seconds. Ben is sure it was the stupidest thing he could have asked her. He runs a hand through his and is beginning to lower himself back into the car when she whips around, her half down hair slapping across her face. She’s smiling, though.

“Sure, Ben. I’d like that.”

…

Ben doesn’t make a move towards trying to decipher what her saying ‘yes’ means. He just carries on as usual. They continue meeting at the library, and by this point, it’s really just an excuse to hang out. Now that she’s doing better in class and doesn’t need as much help, she has much more free time to paint. And draw. 

She brings in her watercolor book one day and shows him everything she’s working on recreating drawings from a botanical book and the florals are so soft, so delicate, Ben almost doesn’t believe she could have possibly drawn them. Her other work has always been so vibrant and expressive. The paint on her hands is always bold shades of red and yellow, and lately blues and greens. 

She talks about her family, how she ended up in foster care in the first place, how she came to the states as a young child.

He tells her about his life, too. About what it’s been like to be raised by politicians. The expectation that he will follow that path, despite his intense love for science. He tells her how he wants to work in a research lab, how he wants to find a cure for cancer so no one else has to die the way Nana did; slowly, a little more every single day. 

He drives her home during lunch period sometimes, and the rides are spent in comfortable silence that is only interrupted once in a while by Rey’s humming or soft singing. Once, and only once, she catches him singing, too, and when she comments on his voice, Ben is certain his cheeks are completely tomato red. 

The two months that span between her saying yes and prom, Ben has gone from the eighty percent certainty of his feelings for her, to a resounding two hundred and fifty percent certainty. He’s in love with her. Period. And it’s going to destroy him if she doesn’t feel the same way. 

Sooner than he’d like, it’s two weeks before prom and they haven’t talked about anything to do with it. He doesn’t know what color her dress is or if they’re supposed to meet up there, or will she expect him to come pick her up? When he goes to the student government class to buy tickets, there are dozens of flyers advertising suit and tux rentals and he’s reminded once again that he still hasn’t called to reserve his own.

That day, while he and Rey review her flashcards he lets her know that the tickets are taken care of, she just nods and seems unsure what else to say.

“My mom says I should ask what color your dress is, so I can match.”

“It’s blue, like a turquoise.”

“Turquoise. Got it.” Rey seems just as apprehensive to discuss prom details as he is, so he moves on to the next flashcard.

The next afternoon he and Han are at The Dapper Dandy reserving his suit.

“Tuxes are for squares and weddings, son.” Han had said with a clap to Ben’s back. “Everyone’s gonna be wearing some powder blue bullshit, and I know you said her dress is blue, but you don’t wanna overdo it, son.”

The attendant recommends a white suit and Han practically guffaws.

“My poor here didn’t inherit my olive skin, unfortunately. How about a brown?”  
  
Ben knows nothing about fashion or suits, but by the end of the appointment he’s booked in for a brown suit and Han has purchased matching shoes and a tie labeled “turquoise”. 

On the drive home, Han starts talking about ‘treating a lady right’ and ‘being respectful’ and reminds Ben to “not to just stick in there, girls need to be ready. And always, always get consent, son.”

Ben wants to die. Fuck the prom. He wants to fling himself from the car here and now.

“It’s not like that, Dad.”

“Ben, I have seen the way this girl has changed you this year. You may not know it yet, and if she’s not ready you respect that and back off. But it is definitely ‘ _like that_ ’.” He notices his dad smirking in that lopsided way he does before taking his eyes off the road for just a second. “It is for you, anyway. She’d be crazy not to feel the same.”

That night at dinner Han announces to Leia that Ben is all set for the prom - suit, shoes and tie - like he’s solved world hunger and Ben has to stuff his face with lasagna to avoid laughing at the admonishing look his mother shoots him.

“Limo?”

Shit.

“Corsage?”

Fuck.  
  
“Hotel?”

“Mom!”

“Benny, I wasn’t born yesterday.” For her part, Leia looks equally flummoxed and embarrassed at the idea of Ben in a hotel room with a girl at the prom. “I know how you feel about this girl, we all do, and if that’s what you all want to do I would rather you be in a safe place and not screwing in the back of the limo!”

“It’s not like that with Rey!” He’s whining. He’d been lucky up to this point to have avoided many embarrassing parent moments, but even in his own home, this topped them all. Easily. By hundreds of paces. “And even if it were, that’s not going to happen.”  
  
“Maybe not that night…”  
  
“I haven’t booked a limo.”  
  
“Well, that’s already taken care of, Benny.” Leia smiles smugly as she stands and gathers empty dishes in a pile. “Let me know if you change your mind about the hotel room.”

Ben definitely should have flung himself out of the car.

…

The Wednesday before Prom, Rey informs him that she won’t be at school the next couple of days; she has a doctor’s appointment that she has to go out of town for and Maz is taking her.

“I’ll be back by Friday evening, so don’t worry.” She reassures him when she sees the tension building in his shoulders. “Plenty of time to scrub this paint off for prom.”

“You can keep it. If you want.”  
  
“Well, I think Maz and your parents would be pretty upset if I ruined your prom pictures with dirty hands and nails.” Rey laughs quietly. 

Ben informs her of the plan to have her dropped off at his house before, where the limo will get them.

“My Nana had a fountain installed in the backyard and my mother is insisting that we take out pictures there before we go.” He can’t help but roll his eyes at his mother’s antics. He thinks better than to mention the hotel room.

“That sounds nice, Ben.” Rey is smiling, even if it is a bit sad. “Maz wants to see us off, too. I think I’m more excited about that than I am going to the actual dance.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“No one’s ever wanted me to pose for pictures before a school event, you know?”

He does know, and feels silly for having not thought of it before. Cautiously he reaches out and puts his hand over hers on the table. She starts, clearly shocked. Ben has never initiated any form of contact like this. They lock eyes and Ben thinks for a second that he might try to kiss her. It would be easy, if he just leaned forward, her lips are already parted slightly and look as soft as a cloud. He doesn’t though. He just strokes his thumb across the back of her hand in what he hopes comes across as reassurance.

“We can take as many pictures as you want, Rey.”  
  


🖤

**Author's Note:**

> I swear this was going to just be prom night, but.....


End file.
